Aaron Fender
Portrait Coffee | Atlanta
april 2023
Aaron Fender first began working with coffee in 2012. While studying psychology at Kennesaw State University, Fender worked as a barista at Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee in his spare time. There, he learned about the coffee growing process, and worked his way up to manager. While there, Fender was given the opportunity to meet the coffee company’s growers and producers in person. He traveled to Rwanda, but it wasn’t what he imagined. Fender was exposed to the very real impact of capitalism on the coffee trade, and saw how the exchange of goods wasn’t always equitable. It was a formative experience for him, and he decided to step away from coffee temporarily. Starting in 2017, he began working at a number of hospitality startups, learning how to run a business and how to build a company with strong values.
In 2019, while living in the West End of Atlanta, Fender got to chatting with his friends about how the neighborhood was missing a community coffee shop. Eager to create a shop that reflected the values of the historically rich neighborhood, he started crowdfunding, but when the pandemic hit, he put his plans on hold. Fender began experimenting with his own style of brewing and roasting from home, tapping into every resource he could to expand his skill set. In 2020, Portrait Coffee was born. Fender, alongside his team of co-founders, has made Portrait Coffee a business that builds on the history of the neighborhood, while also looking to its future, creating a safe gathering space for the community and hiring staff from the area. Portrait’s coffee program works directly with specialized coffee growers around the world, interacting with and uplifting the next generation of coffee producers, while serving intentional and layered coffees.
